Hulu’s No One Will Save You Review: Tense, Minimalist Sci-Fi Horror

No one will save you Without wasting time, get to work. After a brief setup, we jump straight into the action: a home invasion that is actually an alien invasion. What follows is an incredibly tense and surprisingly quiet blend of sci-fi and horror, just what you need for an autumn evening at home.

The film, currently streaming on Hulu, is from writer-director Brian Duffield, who has penned similar genre twists before. Nanny And Love and Monsters. The story centers on Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman who lives alone in a large, isolated house and who—for reasons that will become clear much later in the story—is either ignored or hated by virtually everyone in town. But she is constantly busy sewing dresses, building a model village and writing letters to her childhood friend.

You just get a sparse glimpse of Brynn and her quiet life before things go bad. At first glance, it seems that a burglar broke into her house one night, but it turns out that he is a tall, lanky alien with telepathic abilities. It’s really creepy; the alien moves in a disturbing manner, twisting and contorting its body, and makes a sort of clicking sound that is very, well, alien. Brynn barely makes it out alive.

What’s impressive about this first meeting, however, is that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. From there, No one will save you expands the scope of its activities without losing its way. The alien threat grows and, as the film’s title suggests, Brynn is left alone as her neighbors (including the police) won’t lift a finger to help. At its best, the action mirrors the tense moments of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film adaptation. War of the Worlds, turning an ordinary home into a besieged extraterrestrial war zone. There’s even a note Alone at home.

The film also does a great job of maintaining its mystery. The aliens are never explained in detail; in fact, there is almost no dialogue in the film at all. The story is cleverly conveyed through the world itself, along with Dever’s excellent performance. Likewise, the other big secret—why everyone hates Brynn—is only hinted at until the very end. Although he never strays too far from his original concept, No one will save you still manages to maintain hard-to-predict twists. It’s best to know as little as possible.

This is a movie made for streaming, and there are a few points where this is obvious. It mostly comes down to CGI and special effects; The creature designs are cool, a mix of classic aliens and Slenderman, but the final product looks unrealistic and lacks the detail that allows it to fit into the real world. This is especially true in cases where you manage to see an alien up close. Something just doesn’t look right. It’s as if technology can’t keep up with artists’ ideas.

Nevertheless, No one will save you it’s a delightful surprise and comes just in time for the spooky season. It’s a tense, focused thriller with a unique concept that it continues to develop. The ending is a little, well, weird, but the path to it is deliciously tense.

No one will save you is currently streaming on Hulu in the US and on Star Plus and Disney Plus in other countries.